ND Admissions: myth vs. reality

August 21, 2011|ERIC HANSEN | Tribune Staff Writer

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"I've done a lot of research on this," Bishop said. "When you're loading test scores and grades ... and you're correlating success in high school to success in college, even the best universities doing the most stringent research can usually explain about 50 percent of the student's success based upon their (high school) academics.

"The other 50 percent is determined by a lot of personal choices that kids make. So since half the success is going to be how we read them personally, you can't have it as a numbers game. You really have to look at each individual case."

When looking at the raw numbers, though, Bishop said high school GPA is a 2 1/2 to three times more reliable predictor of how the student will perform in college than standardized test scores (ACT and SAT).

"At times, we'll look at a kid on paper," Bishop said, "Then when we meet them, we'll see what they say. We'll look a kid in the eye and talk to him very candidly. There are kids that can't look us in the eye, aren't even able to communicate that they get the academic side. If that happens we'll tell the coach, and we're done.

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"At the other end, we'll have a couple of kids that look you in the eye, and you see there's a competitive spirit there, that they are going to be able to compete in the classroom."

Myth vs. reality: The admissions bar has moved up and down significantly over the past 30 years.

Bishop said there is no data to support that, either on the front end, in terms of GPAs and test scores, or the back end, in terms of graduation rates. In fact, ND's last three football classes have ranked second, first and first nationally in graduation rates.

The latest speculation is that the bar has dropped, to make winning easier for current head coach Brian Kelly.

"I'm a big believer in when anecdotes are being thrown around you go back and look at the data," Bishop said. "Since you can't look at graduation data yet for these recent classes, we look at the admissions data, and they're right on track with previous years.

"There's not more at the bottom, and actually they had a few more at the top."

Bishop said typically there are about five to seven prospects in each football class that are "lights out" and roughly five that are on the fence.

"Those are the ones you really watch," Bishop said. "And if they don't make it, you let the coaches know the bar's going up. That hasn't had to happen here.

"What's happened here and some of the other universities I've worked at, you sometimes notice a drifting of one direction or another, and you might say, 'Gee, we're getting too many cases that we're saying no to you about. You might want to upgrade the quality of recruitment.'

"Coaches, though, self-correct a lot. They're very skilled at the rules of the game, and they're willing to live within those rules, because they don't want to waste time."

Interestingly, while football standards have been constant, the normal student population's admissions numbers have steadily risen, creating more of a gap between them and the football players than 25 years ago.

"So far the football players have responded to that in the classroom and with the graduation numbers," Bishop said. "If we saw some slippage, then we'd have to recalibrate, but that hasn't been the case."

Myth vs. reality: Each ND coach has a certain number of "exemptions."

Bishop said there's no such thing, with either football players or the general student population, but there are close calls. Always, though, the admissions office has the final say on those.

"Often times we eliminate the type of applicant that we're not willing to admit early in the recruitment process," he said.

"I think naturally there's always going to be tensions between admissions and athletics," Mundy said. "And I think that's a good thing. You should find that at any school. There should always be a dynamic of recruited athletes who you have some discussion and debate over."

Bishop references a book called "The Shape of the River" when explaining why Notre Dame took a chance on players like Foley, Rice and Robinson in the past and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

"The authors of the book, two university presidents, found that athletes after college tend to outperform their test scores and their grades in success and life," Bishop said.

"And partially they might outperform what had been projected as their grades in college because of their work habits, their introspect and their experiences. When we look a kid in the eye, and he says, 'I'm going to work harder, and I'm going to do it,' we listen.

"We've had some very successful stories with those kids, and there's no reason to think we won't have more."